1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laser treatment apparatus for performing treatment by irradiating a skin of a patient with a laser beam for treatment.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been known a laser treatment apparatus for irradiating a skin of a patient with a laser beam for treatment (hereinafter referred to as a treatment beam) to remove birthmarks, stains, tattoos being on the skin or to cause depilation. A type of this apparatus needs that irradiation conditions such as output power, irradiation time, irradiation density, and irradiation energy of the treatment beam are appropriately determined in consideration of a state of a treatment part of the patient""s skin. In laser treatment for depilation, for instance, an optimum value of the output power of the treatment beam with respect to the skin of a patient to be treated is determined by a test-irradiation of the treatment beam to the skin. In this test-irradiation, the intensity of the treatment beam is gradually increased until the patient feels a pain on the skin, and then the power is set to a value slightly lower than the value at which the patient feels a pain. In the laser depilation treatment, furthermore, an operator observes the thickness of a hair in advance and sets the irradiation condition based on his own experience.
However, the state of the skin and the treatment part is different from patient to patient. Determining the optimum irradiation condition with the treatment beam test-irradiated would give troublesomeness to the operator and impose a large burden on the patient. Setting the irradiation conditions in consideration of the thickness of a hair for the laser depilation treatment largely depends on the operator""s experience. When the output power of the treatment beam is too strong or the irradiation time thereof is too long, the possibility that the treatment beam damages the skin would increase. When the output power is too low or the irradiation time is too short, to the contrary, the treatment (depilation) could not surely, efficiently be achieved.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has an object to overcome the above problems and to provide a laser treatment apparatus capable of easily determining optimum irradiation conditions according to the color of a skin (and further the thickness of a hair for depilation) to perform efficient treatment (depilation) with less damage to the skin.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To achieve the purpose of the invention, there is provided a laser treatment apparatus for performing treatment by irradiating a skin of a patient with a laser beam for treatment, the apparatus including: an irradiation unit including a laser source which emits a treatment laser beam and an irradiation optical system which delivers the treatment laser beam from the laser source to a treatment part of the skin to irradiate the part; a skin color detection unit including an imaging element which takes a picture image of the skin to be irradiated and an image processing section which detects a color of the imaged skin; a determination unit which determines an irradiation condition including at least one of output power of the treatment laser beam, irradiation time, irradiation density, and irradiation energy; a memory which stores data on the skin color detected by the detection unit and, in association therewith, data on the irradiation condition determined by the determination unit; and a control section which automatically determines an irradiation condition based on data on a skin color that is newly detected and the data having been stored in the memory, and transmits a control signal representative of the determined irradiation condition to the irradiation unit for control of irradiation of the treatment laser beam.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a laser treatment apparatus for performing treatment by irradiating a skin of a patient with a laser beam for treatment, the apparatus including: an irradiation unit including a laser source which emits the treatment laser beam and an irradiation optical system which delivers the treatment laser beam from the laser source to a treatment part of the skin to irradiate the part; a skin color detection unit including an imaging element which takes a picture image of the skin to be irradiated and an image processing section which detects a color of the imaged skin; a memory which stores, in a table form, data on a plurality of skin colors classified into plural kinds by a predetermined reference and data on irradiation conditions associated with the kinds of skin colors individually, the irradiation conditions including at least one of output power of the treatment laser beam, irradiation time, irradiation density, and irradiation energy; and a control section which automatically determines an irradiation condition based on data on a skin color that is newly detected by the detection unit and the table having been stored in the memory, and transmits a control signal representative of the determined irradiation condition to the irradiation unit for control of irradiation of the treatment laser beam.